


You Know Who'd Love This?

by tommyandthejons



Series: You Know Who'd Love This [1]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-19 01:26:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15499212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommyandthejons/pseuds/tommyandthejons
Summary: Tommy couldn’t remember who had said it first, but he could imagine how it had gone.  Maybe it had been at a bar, a group of them together after a long day at work— they rarely had any other kind— and someone said, “You know who’d love this?” and then, when everyone looked over, answered their own question.  “Lovett.”





	You Know Who'd Love This?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [justlikesomuch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikesomuch/pseuds/justlikesomuch) for betaing!

Tommy couldn’t remember who had said it first, but he could imagine how it had gone. Maybe it had been at a bar, a group of them together after a long day at work— they rarely had any other kind— and someone said, “You know who’d love this?” and then, when everyone looked over, answered their own question. “Lovett.”

He couldn’t remember if it had been serious or sarcastic that first time, though sarcastic was probably right. Maybe they’d ended up at a bar Lovett would have hated, someplace that only had beers he’d never heard of, or a sports bar, or they’d ordered something that ended up being surprisingly healthy.

It became a joke they all shared, the question enough to provoke a laugh or a groan, to have them imagining what Lovett’s reaction to whatever was happening would've been if he were still there.

Tommy and Jon may have run it into the ground a little, enough that when Lovett was back, helping on the jokes for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and Tommy stopped by, Jon slipped and said, “You know who’d love this?” while Lovett was still in the room.

“Who?” Lovett demanded and Jon and Tommy looked at each other and burst out laughing, which only led to Lovett pestering them further.

“Come on, who? What, you guys are making new, secret friends now that I’m gone?” Lovett whined at them. “You promised before I left that you’d never replace me.”

“I don’t remember promising that,” Tommy said, fighting the smile that was struggling free. “Do you remember promising that, Jon?”

“Can’t say I do, Tommy,” Jon said. Tommy wasn’t sure if he was at all trying to hide his laughter, but if he was, he was definitely not successful at it.

“You are the worst,” Lovett declared.

“Just this morning, you said people who jog on the mall are the worst,” Tommy said.

“They’re also the worst, but you do that too, which makes you the very worst.”

“Guess I’ll have to find a way to live with that,” Tommy said, losing the fight to keep from grinning.

“Come on, guys, tell me,” Lovett whined at them.

Jon just grinned and Tommy shook his head and no matter how Lovett pestered or pushed or tried to bribe them, they didn’t say a word.

“I hope you realize this is bullying,” Lovett said, which only succeed in making them laugh more, even though it left Lovett sulking for the rest of the night.

\--

The problem was, the joke didn’t stop there. When Jon kissed Tommy for the first time, there’d been this awkward moment when Tommy was terrified Jon was going to take it back, or they were just going to ignore it. Then Tommy had said, "You know who'd love this?" as Jon looked at him, eyes all earnest and that was enough to set him laughing, to make him stop propping himself up and let himself fall down against Tommy's chest, and Tommy held him until the laughter went from giant guffaws to tiny aftershocks. 

"Are we going to talk about this though?" Jon finally asked. 

"Do we have to?" Tommy asked plaintively. 

Jon ducked his head. "Not if you want to pretend it didn't happen.”

"No," Tommy said and Jon’s face fell, which gave Tommy the courage to finish and say, "That's not what I want at all.”

“Good,” Jon said fiercely before leaning in to kiss Tommy again.

Tommy kept pushing off talking about it any more than that; he figured it was probably a stress relief thing for Jon and he could be okay with that, as long as it lasted.

Then one day, Jon was sprawled on top of Tommy and he was feeling drowsy and calm, the way he always did after, and Jon said, “You know you’re my best friend?”

“Don’t let Lovett hear you say that,” Tommy said.

“Ha,” Jon said and smacked his arm. “You are, and if that’s all this is, friends messing around, it’s fine, but—”

Suddenly, with that ‘but,’ Tommy was extremely awake.

“— if it’s not, I mean, maybe we could—”

“Yes,” Tommy said, not letting Jon finish.

“Yes?” he repeated, staring at Tommy’s profile.

“Yes, I want that too,” Tommy said.

“Okay then,” Jon said and his eyes crinkled as he smiled.

\--

They didn’t set out intending to keep it a secret, but nothing else really changed between the two of them. Jon maybe was a little more physically affectionate, but he always had been, and if Tommy leaned into it a little more, no one seemed to notice. If Lovett were there, he probably would have picked up on it, but he wasn’t and and Tommy hadn’t bothered getting a new roommate after Lovett had left; he hadn’t needed, or wanted to, so there wasn’t anyone to notice. 

Tommy had thought about calling Lovett— he knew Lovett would want to know, though he was pretty sure Lovett would be full of questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. He was certain Jon hadn’t talked to Lovett either because if he had, Tommy definitely would have been ducking far more phone calls.

Tommy didn’t know why Jon hadn’t said anything, but he knew why he hadn’t; he wasn’t sure what Lovett’s reaction would be and it made him feel strangely vulnerable. It didn’t help that they’d kept escalating jokes about how Lovett would react to what they were doing in bed. It had gone from a joke, to a challenge—when Tommy wanted to rim Jon and he’d hesitated, Tommy had stroked the small of his back and said, “You know who’d love it?” more of a suggestion than a joke this time, conjuring an image of Lovett leaving himself vulnerable to them like that. And just like that, he was coaxing a maybe out of Jon that eventually led to an enthusiastic string of yes, yes, yes. From there, it was a small step to fantasies they traded back and forth, Lovett fucking them and being fucked, the sounds he’d make, how he’d tell them what they were doing wrong, and how maybe he’d tell them his own fantasies in return. 

Tommy was split between feeling guilt and want, and the only mitigating factor was his certainty that Jon felt the same way.

Then Jon was leaving and so was he and they were starting a business, which seemed crazy, but then Tommy thought of everything else they'd started and it didn't seem crazy at all, more like his capacity to judge normal had been broken. But they were headed to different parts of the country, and they hadn’t talked about it. Normal or not, he knew what that meant. 

He avoided bringing it up until it was almost too late, because sometimes uncertainty could be preferable to knowing— he'd certainly learned that the hard way— but in the end, he couldn't let that be the end. 

"So we haven't said, what are we doing about this?" he said to Jon without warning, watching as Jon chewed on his lip before saying, "Doing?" as if he didn't know exactly what Tommy meant. Trust Jon to force him to be the confrontational one.

“How long do you think we can keep this up, long distance?” he asked.

“Is that,” Jon started and stopped then started again. “If that’s what you think, I don’t have to go.”

Tommy couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Jon as excited about something as he was about the fellowship in Chicago. He hated that he couldn’t remember it because he was pretty sure it was because it had been far too long, and the only reason he hadn’t noticed was, aside from the moments they stole, it had been equally long for him and he hadn’t been able to look past that.

“Yes,” he said, “you do.”

“Then come with me,” Jon said, and he sounded almost desperate.

“Okay,” he found himself saying and Jon smiled like it was everything— his birthday, and the announcement of the first state to turn blue and tip them over the number they needed to win the electoral college, and the moment he’d heard he’d gotten the fellowship, all at the same time.

\--

If DC was something between a friends with benefit period and a honeymoon, Chicago was when things started to get real. They told their parents. They moved in together. Jon brought Tommy to some terrible boring social event at the college, like they hadn’t had enough of those, but at this one, he introduced him as his boyfriend, and then again in front of the students when he had Tommy as a guest at a seminar. Step by irreversible step, everything became more and more real, but instead of being overwhelming, it made Tommy feel more secure.

The way they told Lovett was this: he came to visit. They’d meant to tell him sooner, or at least Tommy had wanted to, but Jon kept changing the subject whenever he’d brought it up, they had an unexpected surge of interest in Fenway and before they’d known it, Lovett was there.

“Hey, I don’t want to put you out of your room,” he’d said after the apartment tour. “Does the couch pull out? It doesn’t look like a pull-out and it’s not tall enough for you to fit. Where were you going to sleep?”

“You’re not,” Jon said, “Uh, putting us out that is.”

“Okay, I don’t want to put Tommy out of his room. Besides, Tommy, did you even decorate? I’ll have nightmares that I’ve turned into a Tommy clone, that room is so colorless.”

“Jon, you’re not putting me out either,” Tommy said then, like pulling off a bandaid, or something else they’d both probably deride as unbearably cliche, he added, “We’re dating.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh,” and looked at them, studying Tommy, then Jon, and Tommy could practically see as questions occurred to him.

“We wanted to tell you—” Jon said, trying to jump in front of a fight.

“Yeah, yeah, no, I get it, I do,” he said and Tommy wasn’t sure if Lovett actually sounded brittle or if he was imagining things he wanted to hear— things he had no right to want to hear. “Listen, congrats, I’m happy for you guys, also I have a punch card thing,” he was exaggeratedly patting his pockets, “and I need you to help me out, I’m only three converts away from a free toaster.”

They both laughed, loud and large, harder than they might have otherwise because of the relief. If Lovett was joking about it, it was okay.

It wasn’t until they went out for drinks and Jon got up to go to the bathroom, that Lovett said, in a studiedly casual voice, “So how long?” as he picked at the label of his cheap beer.

Tommy didn’t pretend not to know what he meant even if he was split between thinking it was none of Lovett’s business and wanting it to intimately be his business. “I guess, around the correspondents’ dinner?” They’d hooked up for the first time after that and things moved so fast in the White House that it was often easier to keep track of events than it was to remember dates.

Jon’s hand slipped and he tore a long strip off the label.

“It wasn’t serious at first,” Tommy said defensively, because it hadn’t been, until it was all too serious and he didn’t know why Favs hadn’t wanted to tell Jon, but he knew it was probably the same as it was for him, mixed feelings of guilt and want and uncertainty. 

“No, hey, it’s cool,” Jon said, except he sounded like he was about to cry and his eyes looked suspiciously wet. Then Jon was back and Lovett was smiling and said, “So I was just telling Tommy how great this whole thing is.”

“You were?” Jon asked, his smile hesitant, as if he was afraid of a trap.

“Sure,” Lovett agreed easily. “Just think— before I was the jerk who didn’t get either of you a housewarming gift, but I’ve basically cut that in half now because I would have only needed to get one. Half the jerk and no effort from me, how could that be anything other than great?”

Jon laughed easily and clapped a hand against Lovett’s shoulder, and Tommy managed a smile, but he spent the rest of the night looking for evidence of whether Lovett was really okay and not finding enough to convince himself one way or the other.

\--

If Tommy expected Lovett to act differently with them after that, he soon learned he was wrong. Lovett was almost completely the same, bar fewer references to his straight bros or bromosexuals, or whatever the joke of the moment was, and more defensiveness when he slipped and forgot, then remembered—though he did regularly call them the straightest gays he knew. Maybe there was less flirting too, Tommy thought, not no flirting, but less, like maybe Lovett felt the same potential between them that they did. Or, when he was feeling less optimistic, that Lovett wanted to make it clear he wasn't into them, now that he knew they were interested in men. He didn’t think it could be the relationship thing, because it had never stopped Lovett before. Still, the decrease in flirting somehow made it feel more charged, not less.

Tommy and Jon talked about that too. Not nearly as often as they speculated about the sounds Lovett would make, or what it would take to overwhelm him enough to stop making them, but every once in a while after a call or a text, one of them would say, "Do you think he’d—" and trail off and the other would say a wistful, "Maybe."

It turned out, maybe Chicago was more of a honeymoon period than Tommy originally thought, because Jon's fellowship was up and they had to decide what next. There were real world things like lease renewals to make decisions about. Tommy liked Chicago, he did, but he didn't really have ties to the city beyond Jon, and there was Fenway, which was doing well enough, but could do equally well no matter where they were. So when Tommy brought up the lease yet again, not caring if it was nagging because they needed to make a decision, Jon said, "So I've been thinking. California." Tommy said, "Okay," again. He wondered if he'd always say okay to Jon so easily and if he'd ever regret it, but he didn't think he would. 

Jon had clearly been gearing himself up for more of a fight because he echoed, "Okay," bewilderedly. 

"Sure," Tommy said and then, because he couldn't help himself, followed up with, "San Francisco or San Diego?"

"Actually, I was thinking LA," Jon said, as if he expected Tommy to argue and swatted at him when Tommy couldn't contain his laughter anymore. "Ass," he said but it was with affection.

LA had lots of advantages— they’d been talking about a show about a campaign on and off and even had a few ideas around episodes and Lovett had introduced them to some people who’d seemed interested when they’d gone out for a visit, and in the meantime they could keep up with Fenway— but the biggest draw was the one they didn’t speak about: Lovett.

That wasn’t exactly true— they spoke about how it was great that they’d know someone already out there and that he could help them settle in, all the while ignoring that there were half a dozen other places where they had friends that would be equally true for, not the least San Francisco, which Tommy had to admit, he liked more as a city purely on its own merits.

They looked at places online, had an agent to help them find someplace even, but it wasn’t the same as looking in person, and they were coming up fast on the potential of being in LA without someplace to stay.

Tommy closed his computer, tired of looking at the staged pictures and asked Jon, “Think he’d let us crash for a bit, until we find a place?”

“One way to find out,” Jon said, then tossed Tommy his phone.

\--

“November was definitely the right time to move to California,” Jon said as they stood outside the airport, tipping his face up to the sun.

Tommy smiled at Jon’s enjoyment. It did feel like the right choice in that moment, a bone deep certainty Tommy didn’t think he’d felt with anyone but Jon since the first election.

Then there was a horn honking and Tommy heard a familiar voice shout, “Get in, losers,” at them.

“Not a very nice way to talk to your friends,” Tommy said, as he settled into the backseat.

“Oh my G-d, it was a Mean Girls reference, you really are the worst,” Lovett turned around mid-rant and saw that Tommy was biting his lip to keep from laughing. “The worst friends. Here I am, taking time out of my busy life to pick you up at the airport so you can come and stay at my house for an indefinite period of time, and this is how you treat me?”

“You made me watch it like ten times, Lovett,” Tommy said. “Of course I got the reference.”

Then Jon reached out a hand to Lovett’s shoulder and said in his most sincere voice, “And we really are grateful, Lovett, for you taking us in like this. We couldn’t do it without you.”

It probably shouldn’t have been a turn on, Tommy thought, seeing Jon reaching out to Jon, totally innocently. He wondered if they’d accidentally created a Pavlovian reflex in themselves and how long it would be before it wore off, ignoring the thought that he didn’t want it to, even as he shifted uncomfortably.

“Yeah, well,” Lovett said. “You guys are lucky you have me in your lives.”

“We are,” Jon agreed, hand still on Lovett’s shoulder, and it was hard to tell— Lovett didn’t turn red nearly as easily as he did and there was also the glare from the sun they were driving towards— but Tommy thought Lovett might be blushing.

Lovett was around less than Tommy anticipated, which should have been a relief because when he was around it was driving Tommy a little crazy. He and Jon were generally up for a few hours before they encountered a drowsy Lovett, eyes only just open, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and it made Tommy want to drag him back to bed, or not even, just crowd into him and kiss him the rest of the way awake.

Tommy wasn't sure if it made it better or worse that he and Jon hadn’t talked about Lovett like that since they were staying in his house. Logically, it made sense; it wasn't like talking about Lovett was all they did in bed or out of bed for that matter, and there was definitely an increased risk of them being overheard.

Tommy had been thinking about that a lot, one of them slipping up and saying something where Lovett could hear. He wondered how he’d react. Shamefully, it was just as much of a turn on when he imagined Lovett telling them off about how inappropriate it was, as when he imagined Lovett being into it, standing there watching until Jon got up and pulled him over to join them.

Jon slipped a little one night, when Lovett actually stayed home and hung out with them. Lovett had leaned off the couch and stretched to grab something rather than getting up to pick it up and Tommy had caught a glimpse of his stomach where his shirt rode up. He knew Jon had seen it too when he heard him groan. Jon and Tommy both tended to strip easily and often, but there was something to be said for denial, he supposed, because the glimpse of that stretch of Lovett’s stomach was unbelievably fucking hot.

“He’s just so—“ Jon said later, when Tommy was wrapped around him, lips against his neck, and Tommy groaned and pushed against him because he knew exactly what Jon meant.

Still, for all the comfortable moments with the three of them, it seemed like there were more times when Jon wasn’t there at all. He had a date or plans with friends more nights than not, and Tommy might not have thought anything of it, if he hadn’t lived with Lovett in DC and seen him spend the little free time they had nestled in the same spot on their beat up couch, wrapped with a blanket so his face was just barely visible, with it tucked around his arms like pseudo sleeves so he could hold the video game controller. Sometimes he thought if he hadn’t seen Lovett at work, he would have thought he’d never moved from the couch.

Lovett could have changed, Tommy certainly wasn’t denying that. If you asked him five years ago where he thought he’d be, it certainly wouldn’t be in WeHo, fucking his best friend while pining for his other best friend. People could change, but Tommy somehow found it hard to believe that Jon had changed that much. Especially because, in the moments he didn’t seem to realize they were watching, Lovett seemed tired and sad. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t happy, and Tommy knew he wanted to fix that, even if he wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t the sort of thing they’d ever really talked about— the White House had been too busy to do anything more than make sure everyone kept moving, and after, it hadn’t seemed like an issue. Probably, Tommy thought a little guiltily, he and Jon had been too busy to notice— too busy not talking about their own stuff, and then after, actually working it out.

For a group of professional communicators, they were a lot better at handling communication when it was work-related than at any other time.

In between everything else, Tommy and Jon were looking for a house of their own, but nothing they looked at was quite right— too small, too big, no yard, too far from Lovett. It was like house hunting with Goldilocks, and Tommy knew it hadn’t been this fucking hard to find a place in Chicago. Even when there was someplace almost right, before they came to a decision, someone else grabbed it.

One day, they stopped for coffee after another unsuccessful day of house hunting followed by an equally unsuccessful hunt for Tommy’s sunglasses, which he must have left in one of the houses. They’d texted Lovett to see if he wanted to put in his ridiculous coffee order for them to pick up, but he hadn’t responded.

Jon was placing their order— Tommy wouldn’t have even bothered coming in except he hadn’t fully expected Jon to get his coffee right, when he noticed someone wearing the same t-shirt he had teased Lovett about that morning. Before he could send a text to Lovett telling him he wasn’t the only one in LA with taste that bad, he looked at the guy’s face and realized there was only one person in LA with taste that bad after all.

“Hey,” he said to Jon. “Didn’t Lovett say he had a thing?”

“Yeah, I thought he did,” Jon said, grabbing the receipt from the cashier.

Tommy jerked his head towards where Lovett was sitting. “Recognize anyone?”

So instead of waiting for their coffee to be done, they walked over to where Lovett was sitting, one of them on either side. Lovett didn’t even look up, just asked, “Do you mind sitting somewhere else?” as he continued writing something in his notebook.

“I don’t know,” Tommy said, and Lovett did look up then. “Do you mind, Jon?”

“I do, a little,” Jon said. “What, do we smell or something, Lovett?”

He looked up then and Tommy could tell the exact moment he went from being annoyed to realizing it was them.

“If I say yes, will you go away?” he asked

They didn’t bother answering. Tommy picked up Lovett’s cup instead, testing to see how much was left, and when he realized it was empty, pushed it towards Jon and tilted his head towards the counter. He rolled his eyes, but he went to order another for Lovett anyway.

“Do you two even talk, or do you communicate entirely through gestures and meaningful looks now?” Lovett asked. Tommy felt himself start to flush, thinking of some of the things they'd talked about and Lovett’s potential reaction. 

“Do I want to know?” Lovett asked.

Tommy ignored him, in favor of saying, “So did Spencer cancel on you?”

“Oh yeah, Spencer cancelled,” Lovett said, and not only did he look shifty, but Tommy was pretty sure he’d said Spencer was going to be out of town this week.

“He was going to go to that new horror movie with you, right?” Last night was when Lovett was supposed to be seeing the horror movie, Tommy was sure.

“It’ll be fine, we’ll just go another time,” Lovett said, which was also unusual. Lovett never responded well to people cancelling plans.

“At least you had game night on Monday,” Tommy threw out. Game night had probably been real, he thought, because Lovett had taken a stack of board games with him.

“Yeah, hey, listen, I’m actually getting some writing done. It was nice of you to say hi but—“

“What game did you end up playing?” Tommy pressed. 

“Little of this, little of that,” Lovett said. Tommy had never known Lovett to miss an opportunity to tell him far too many details about whatever stupid game he’s playing. Tommy once decided to see how long Lovett would recount a game if he just said “mm hmm,” when there was a pause and he’d told him about it for nearly twenty minutes before Tommy slipped and forgot to respond and ended up getting a lecture on not listening that was nearly as long.

“Is this where you've been all the time, hiding out to avoid us?” he said, in a perfectly normal tone, going in for the kill.

“Not _all_ the time,” Lovett said, but he wouldn’t meet Tommy’s eyes.

“You know we can afford to stay in a hotel if we’re putting you out.”

“It’s not that, you know you’re my guys—” Tommy was definitely flushing again. He couldn’t help it, not when Lovett was calling them his, even if he didn’t mean it the way Tommy wanted him to. “— I’m just used to my space. It’s been a long time since I’ve had roommates.

“Besides,” he continued, flipping through the pages of his notebook to illustrate. “Look how much writing I've been getting done.”

“We’ll be out of your hair soon,” Tommy said. “Promise.”

“I know,” Lovett said, and if he sounded a little down, Tommy wasn’t going to let himself read too much into why, especially since Jon was back with the coffee and Lovett was smiling up at him. It had probably just been his imagination.

\--

After that, Tommy started doing extra work to find them a place, searching out options and sending them to the real estate agent, weeding out places he knew Jon and Lovett would nix before they wasted time seeing them. If Lovett needed space, he could make that happen. It took another week, but he found the perfect solution.

“So the good news is, the house across the street is going to be available,” Tommy said.

“Sold,” said Jon without looking up from his phone.

“The bad news,” Tommy continued, “Is it won’t be ready for a month.”

“So?” Jon asked, shrugging, the most easygoing Tommy had seen him since they’d started house hunting. “It sounds perfect.”

“Well, I guess we could stay at Lovett’s for that long, if he’ll let us. And then there’s Christmas, so we’ll be moving in January—“

“— in LA,” Jon said exasperatedly. “I think it’ll be fine.”

“Okay, so I should call her back and schedule a walk through?” Tommy asked, as if he hadn’t already said yes to the place.

“Call her back and say we’ll take it, I’m sure it’s fine!” Jon was giving Tommy a look, his mouth a little open and eyes narrowed, which left Tommy smirking. Jon had been the one who had hemmed and hawed and hesitated over every property, talking it over to death. Even the ones he liked, he’d insisted on having Lovett vet as their local expert and between the difficulty in tracking Lovett down to give an opinion, and the ratio of unfavorable opinions to favourable ones, the very few places that had been deemed acceptable ended up rented out before they could go back for the second look.

“Well?” Jon prompted when Tommy made no movement to call their real estate agent.

“Oh, I should call her now?” he asked, playing dumb.

“Yes, Tommy, of course you should call her now, what are you waiting for?” Jon asked as he ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up awkwardly.

Tommy full-on grinned at that. He couldn’t help it. “Guess it’s a good thing I already told her we’d take it,” he said.

Jon grabbed the nearest thing, a pillow from Lovett’s couch, and threw it at Tommy, then, when it bounced off him, grabbed it again and tackled him back against the couch and started pummeling him with it.

“You jerk,” he said, laughing as he did.

Of course, that was when Lovett walked into the house. When he saw them in the living room, he threw up his hand, blocking them from view and said, “Get a room, no wait, what am I saying, free porn, stay there,” mock leering at them. Tommy felt himself get both harder and redder at the thought of Lovett’s appraisal, even if he could tell it was just a bit and Lovett wasn’t even _really_ looking. When Jon stood up, leaving Tommy exposed on the couch, he grabbed the pillow, a move he hadn’t had to pull since high school.

“Sorry, Lovett,” Jon said. “Tommy found us a house!”

“So you were celebrating by christening my couch?” Lovett asked, then as Jon tried to stammer out a reply, he spoke over them and said, “No, no, don’t tell me, I don’t need details.

“Anyway, great, you guys are going to be out of my hair. So when are you moving?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Jon said. “Can you put up with us for another couple weeks? Just until we leave for Christmas, we can move after, if that’s okay.”

Tommy couldn’t read Lovett’s reaction to that at all; he looked like he was feeling five different things at the same time, but all he said was, “G-d, I knew I should have charged you assholes rent.”

Jon brayed, a full-body, terrible sounding laugh, and Tommy shook his head and laughed too, and it felt like old times again.

\--

Somehow they got through the month and nothing went wrong. Lovett was around more, and he seemed okay, even if sometimes Tommy felt like he was just playing at everything being normal. There was no more house hunting to eat up their time, but they’d started having meetings with people pitching their show, which was a trip.

“We should have a party,” Jon said.

“For your brother and the three people we know other than Lovett?” Tommy asked.

“Sure,” Jon said stubbornly. “It’ll be a New Year’s housewarming thing, we can make it an open invite.”

“Trash the new house as soon as we move in, sounds like a plan,” Tommy said.

A lot more people RSVP than Tommy expected, and they ended up busy setting up the downstairs, getting furniture and speakers which Tommy still wasn’t sure were going to work the night of the party because they kept going down, and then buying a bunch of chips and junk that people had better eat, otherwise he’d be sending it across the street to Lovett after, and enough beer that he questioned why they hadn’t just gotten a keg.

Despite the RSVPs, he was surprised when people actually started showing up that night. They’d dragged Jon over early and had dinner, just the three of them, but then the doorbell started ringing, and before he knew it the house was packed and the music was going. There was dancing in the dining room— it was a good thing the table hadn’t been delivered yet— and conversations in the living room and the kitchen and he’d been moving around, meeting people, and having a few beers and it was good. It was. They needed this, even if he kind of wished that it was still just him and Favs and Lovett.

“Hey!” Jon shouted, and he was swaying enough that Tommy couldn’t help thinking he’d probably have had his shirt off by now if it was five years ago and regretting that he’d barely even let himself look back then. “Have you seen Lovett?”

He thought back and realized he really hadn’t seen him at all since the party had gotten crowded and shook his head. “Maybe he went outside,” he said. “I’ll check.”

Lovett was pretty easy to find— everyone else had mostly stuck inside the house and it wasn’t like there was that much yard to get lost in.

“Hey,” Tommy said, handing him the extra beer he’d grabbed. “Heard there’s a pretty good party going on on inside.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t have much to celebrate.”

“Oh come on, Lovett,” Tommy said.

“You’re right, this has been a banner year for me— I’m single, my show flopped, and the two hottest straight guys I know have decided they’re gay for each other. What’s not to celebrate?”

Lovett swiped a hand over his eyes, as if he thought the shadows would be enough to hide it. Tommy couldn't think of a time he'd seen Lovett cry like that— he'd witnessed him faking it, everything from loud sobs to a quiet single tear, inexplicably yet beautifully executed, but he’d never seen Lovett like this, eyes rimmed red even in the minimal light and trying not to show it. Something twisted inside him. 

"Hey," he said and dropped a hand to Lovett's shoulder. 

"I'm fine," he said, "Just maudlin. You should get back inside and kiss your boyfriend."

Maybe the kind thing would have been to listen, but Tommy didn't. 

"Yeah well, my boyfriend sent me out here," he said and sat down a little too close so he was pressed against Lovett, telling himself Lovett could shove over if he wanted, but glad when he didn't. 

"Stupid," Lovett said. "If I were your boyfriend—" he stopped, of course, just when it was getting good. "I mean if I had a boyfriend," he corrected. 

“No, you didn't," Tommy said, not with certainty, but with hope. 

"You're not cruel, Tommy," Lovett said, and he did move away then, jumping up and fleeing back to the party. Tommy let him, mostly because he'd been outside long enough that Jon had to have realized he’d found Lovett and couldn’t be far behind.

Sure enough he heard, "Your boyfriend is picking on me, Favs."

"Oh?" Jon asked and Tommy smiled because he knew Jon could fix this. The three of them were more balanced together than they were apart. 

"I'm very hurt," he said and then there was a loud sniff and Tommy couldn't believe it but he was turning his real crying into fake crying. Devious. 

“Hey, Tommy," his Jon called. 

"Yeah?"

"You hurt Lovett's feelings."

"I'm sorry, Lovett," he said, getting up and walking over to join them. 

"Okay," Lovett said. "Great, I accept, now let's get back to the party."

Jon grabbed his hand. "I don't know if that's enough," he said. 

"What?" Lovett asked. "It was fine, come on, midnight waits for no one and I have a date with a noisemaker."

"No," Jon said, crossing his arms, and Tommy watched as Lovett's eyes were drawn down and Lovett swallowed. Tommy didn't blame him at all, if he hadn't been watching Lovett, that was where his eyes would have been. "I think Tommy should kiss it better."

"What?" Lovett screeched, his voice breaking a bit. "I'm not a five year old, Jon, that's--"

"Okay," Tommy said and that stopped Lovett but only for a moment before he said, "How about we hug it out instead?" bargaining, but Jon said, "Nope," popping his p obnoxiously, arms still crossed. 

Lovett looked from him to Tommy and Tommy didn't know what he saw, but it was enough for him to give up and say, "Whatever, let's get this over with," and tilt his cheek towards Tommy, inviting a kiss. 

Tommy looked to Jon then too, to make sure they were on the same page, and Jon nodded, then tilted his head, mouth slightly open, the way he looked when he was intent on something, which was a million times harder to put up with after he'd taken advantage of it to slip his fingers, his tongue in his mouth. 

Tommy reached out a hand against Lovett's cheek, pushing gently until they were face to face. "Tommy," Lovett said and he sounded wary which Tommy hated. 

"Jon, is this okay?" he asked, because if it wasn't, he wouldn't, no matter what he and Favs had talked about. Before Lovett could answer, Favs said, "Yes, please, guys," even though he’d meant Lovett, but then Lovett gave a tight, little nod as if he'd been waiting for that final indication Favs was okay with this. 

If this was going to be the only shot they had to convince Lovett, Tommy was going to do this right. He swallowed, suddenly nervous. He let his hand slide down to Lovett’s neck, his other hand hanging weirdly by his side because he didn’t know what to do with it and he was overly aware of every part of his body. He hadn’t felt this awkward about a kiss since his first one; he wasn’t sure he’d even felt that awkward then.

“The offer to hug it out is still open,” Lovett joked and that was enough to break Tommy’s paralysis. He tilted his head and brushed his lips against Lovett’s, once, then again, then, when he didn't pull away, Tommy forgot to be nervous and focused on coaxing Lovett to kiss him back, feeling a thrill when Lovett's hands wrapped around his arms, as if he needed to steady himself after Tommy kissed him again, opening his mouth slightly this time, running his tongue against Lovett’s bottom lip, wondering how Lovett would react if he bit it, just a little. 

At some point, Favs had moved closer, but that was when he said, “If you could see how you two _look_ ,” sounding shaken as he twined his fingers with Tommy’s free hand.

When he pulled away, Lovett’s mouth was shiny and open and his eyes were glazed over. Tommy couldn’t take full responsibility for dragging his thumb over Lovett’s bottom lip before he let him go. It was irresistible. Lovett was irresistible, or at least, Tommy didn’t want to resist him, any more than he wanted to resist Jon.

Tommy was still framing what to say that wouldn’t make Lovett run away from them, when Lovett said in an unfairly level voice, “Okay, well, all’s forgiven, and a very happy New Year to me. Probably time to get back to the party, can’t be long to midnight.”

Tommy shifted so he was between Lovett and the house and Jon reached out a hand to Lovett’s bicep, right below where his sleeve ended and asked, “What about me?”

“Well, I think you can get a kiss from Tommy anytime you want, Jon, since you’re dating. I give it five stars, highly recommended.”

Tommy flushed a little at that, even if Lovett did have a joking cadence to his voice.

”If you were our boyfriend," Tommy said, echoing Lovett's earlier slip, “You could get whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted.”

Lovett looked stunned. "If I were what?"

"Our boyfriend," Jon repeated. "The three of us."

"I thought this was a kinky New Year's thing. You know, send out the year with a bang," Lovett said as he wiggled his eyebrows for effect. 

“Is that what you want?” Jon asked, and Tommy knew if Lovett said yes, they’d take it. When Lovett didn’t answer right away, he pressed, “Is that all you want?”

"This is all so sudden," he said, clearly vamping for time. 

"You don't have to decide right now," Tommy said and Jon made a sad sound so he turned to him and repeated, "He doesn't. If you want to talk about this later, that's fine. Right, Jon?"

"Right," Jon said, any trace of hurt hidden. "Whenever."

"This is weird, you know? You guys are great, you have a great thing, why risk fucking it up?" The ‘for me’ remained unspoken. 

"What if it could be better?" Tommy countered. 

Lovett ignored him. "And you moved to my city, got a house right across the fucking street. When you're tired of this, what then? Do we awkwardly avoid each other until you move to some other city?”

"Lovett," Jon said, then softer, "Jon. I think— we think we could be good together. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t want this.”

Tommy almost couldn’t believe that it was all out in the open after so long.

Lovett covered his face with his hands and didn’t say anything for the longest time. Then he took a really deep breath and said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jon echoed. “Is that a—”

“It’s an okay, I’m in, I’ll do this absolutely crazy thing, but when this goes wrong, you can’t blame me.”

Tommy wasn’t at all surprised that was all it took for Favs to grab Lovett and kiss him, deeper than Tommy did from the start, like he was trying to devour Lovett. He didn’t blame him— if he hadn’t had his turn already, he would have done the same.

When they broke for air, Jon still clinging to Lovett like he was afraid he’d disappear if he didn’t hold on to him.

Lovett looked from them to their house and laughed. “You would choose the night your house is fucking packed.”

“Good thing there’s no one at your house then,” Jon said.

“Cutting out on your own party? What will people think?”

“I don’t care,” Jon said, shifting to wrap one arm around Lovett’s shoulders and the other around Tommy’s. Tommy added, “Moving to a more exclusive one,” as a cheer went up back at their house.

"The noisemaker," Lovett protested jokingly, half turning back.

"I've got something else you can blow," said Tommy, deadpan, not at all expecting Lovett to groan and say, "G-d, Tommy," instead of mocking him. And then Lovett was the one hurrying them on, and all Tommy could think was that this year was definitely going to be the best year.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome! I'm on tumblr [here](https://tommyandthejons.tumblr.com).


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